Episode 72 of The Gauntlet Podcast is pretty fucking fantastic. Lowell Francis joins Richard Rogers and I for a look at a bunch of new games, including tremulus, Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, Tweaks, and Orc Hospital.
WARNING: Opinions are expressed.
Enjoy!
Cc: James Iles Caoimhe Ora Snow Sean Preston Charlie Fleming postworldgames jim pinto Modiphius
Thanks for your thoughts – they definitely line up with a lot of my feelings about Legacy a few years after release. One of the more unexpected hurdles for writing a game was realising just how much of my implicit assumptions I needed to make explicit, and how to best present those to readers. Also blind testing would have been a great thing to do – you’re correct that it was playtested with my local group and lacked that outside perspective. Still I’m glad you liked the basic concepts of the game and I’m taking copious notes for a planned revised edition!
Thanks for your thoughts – they definitely line up with a lot of my feelings about Legacy a few years after release. One of the more unexpected hurdles for writing a game was realising just how much of my implicit assumptions I needed to make explicit, and how to best present those to readers. Also blind testing would have been a great thing to do – you’re correct that it was playtested with my local group and lacked that outside perspective. Still I’m glad you liked the basic concepts of the game and I’m taking copious notes for a planned revised edition!
Hot take on Legacy. We’re playing our second session today. There are some nicely written and interesting moves in there for sure, but they really challenge assumptions about where the rules should intervene.
Hot take on Legacy. We’re playing our second session today. There are some nicely written and interesting moves in there for sure, but they really challenge assumptions about where the rules should intervene.
Kristopher Miller Scott M
Kristopher Miller Scott M
That bit about challenging assumptions sounds interesting, Dirk Detweiler Leichty – could you possibly unpack it a little?
As a note about the intended Family/Character balance, the idea is generally that family moves are open-ended and create situations that the characters then go into to seal the deal/clear up. It ends up moving in phases, even if it’s less regimented than Night Witches or Mouse Guard. Still – could definitely be better explained in the text!
If you’re interested in a bit more actual play I ran a few sessions of the game while it was being kickstartered a couple years back – it doesn’t have the hangouts-fu that a lot of streamed RPG sessions have these days, but it’s there if you’re interested!
youtube.com – Legacy Introduction session
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cizo7JwqQIE
And character details and maps:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4KAK_EamMB9MVo5MzFEQS1DcVE?usp=sharing
That bit about challenging assumptions sounds interesting, Dirk Detweiler Leichty – could you possibly unpack it a little?
As a note about the intended Family/Character balance, the idea is generally that family moves are open-ended and create situations that the characters then go into to seal the deal/clear up. It ends up moving in phases, even if it’s less regimented than Night Witches or Mouse Guard. Still – could definitely be better explained in the text!
If you’re interested in a bit more actual play I ran a few sessions of the game while it was being kickstartered a couple years back – it doesn’t have the hangouts-fu that a lot of streamed RPG sessions have these days, but it’s there if you’re interested!
youtube.com – Legacy Introduction session
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cizo7JwqQIE
And character details and maps:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4KAK_EamMB9MVo5MzFEQS1DcVE?usp=sharing
Lowell Francis any chance you could share that sweet sounding post apocalyptic playlist!?
Lowell Francis any chance you could share that sweet sounding post apocalyptic playlist!?
It probably needs more John Carpenter, but here’s what I put together on the fly: https://open.spotify.com/user/edige23/playlist/0783dKBkhpyJLCbGShqXiz
It probably needs more John Carpenter, but here’s what I put together on the fly: https://open.spotify.com/user/edige23/playlist/0783dKBkhpyJLCbGShqXiz
You can never have enough Carpenter (John not the brother and sister duo)
You can never have enough Carpenter (John not the brother and sister duo)
Lowell Francis needs to get onto The Locked Room Murders, from Japan (鍵のかかった部屋 Kagi no Kakatta Heya). It can be hard to find, but totally worth it. The detectives are a crusading junior lawyer, her boss who never wants to actually be doing any investigating, and a locksmithery nerd.
Also, how did Rich not reply to “You’d think it would start to taper off.” with something about the show starting to drag?
Lowell Francis needs to get onto The Locked Room Murders, from Japan (鍵のかかった部屋 Kagi no Kakatta Heya). It can be hard to find, but totally worth it. The detectives are a crusading junior lawyer, her boss who never wants to actually be doing any investigating, and a locksmithery nerd.
Also, how did Rich not reply to “You’d think it would start to taper off.” with something about the show starting to drag?
This just pumps me up even more for Coriolis, which uses Mutant Year Zero modified. Tweaks has been great, Rich! I also just got Jim Pintos new game King of Storms, and he was saying it’s like the evolved version of that system for Orc Hospital. Excited to check it out, literally got the game the same day the KS ended! Pretty great, seems like a really nice guy too.
This just pumps me up even more for Coriolis, which uses Mutant Year Zero modified. Tweaks has been great, Rich! I also just got Jim Pintos new game King of Storms, and he was saying it’s like the evolved version of that system for Orc Hospital. Excited to check it out, literally got the game the same day the KS ended! Pretty great, seems like a really nice guy too.
Lowell Francis Did you happen to back Coriolis as well? If so, maybe we could play it together sometime too!?
Lowell Francis Did you happen to back Coriolis as well? If so, maybe we could play it together sometime too!?
I did, entirely based on how much I enjoyed the MYZ products. We should definitely play it when it finally drops.
I did, entirely based on how much I enjoyed the MYZ products. We should definitely play it when it finally drops.
Opinions are what make the show great.
Opinions are what make the show great.
Jason Cordova
Thanks for the Orc Hospital shout-out. I enjoyed the session immensely, busting out in desk-slapping LOLs (which were fortunately muted) at least once.
I might have to bring Dignik Elfanasia into one of my DW games.
Jason Cordova
Thanks for the Orc Hospital shout-out. I enjoyed the session immensely, busting out in desk-slapping LOLs (which were fortunately muted) at least once.
I might have to bring Dignik Elfanasia into one of my DW games.
Were I to run Legacy I might try approaching it Ars Magica style, with the families as the mages. In the initial setup, I would stop after families were created. For the first game, there is a “council meeting” of some kind where the families meet to discuss some problem. Each family sends a representative (who is only briefly fleshed out). The GM presents the problem, the representatives decide what to do about it, each offering up one of their family to help deal with it.
Character creation then is done, where the players build the family member nominated to deal with the crisis. PCs get forced together by the crisis and need to a) solve the crisis, b) improve the position of their family and c) pursue their own agenda, not necessarily in that order.
Play proceeds with the characters, but might go back and forth with family.
The age turns, the characters are retired. Then a crisis forces another council meeting…
Were I to run Legacy I might try approaching it Ars Magica style, with the families as the mages. In the initial setup, I would stop after families were created. For the first game, there is a “council meeting” of some kind where the families meet to discuss some problem. Each family sends a representative (who is only briefly fleshed out). The GM presents the problem, the representatives decide what to do about it, each offering up one of their family to help deal with it.
Character creation then is done, where the players build the family member nominated to deal with the crisis. PCs get forced together by the crisis and need to a) solve the crisis, b) improve the position of their family and c) pursue their own agenda, not necessarily in that order.
Play proceeds with the characters, but might go back and forth with family.
The age turns, the characters are retired. Then a crisis forces another council meeting…
Lester Ward Council of Elrond style should work well! Definitely a good way to get the ball rolling – I find that in later Ages family agendas tend to take care of themselves.
I’m actually drafting up rules inspired by Ars M at the moment, so that if the fiction is focused on one particular character everyone else can make bit characters from that character’s family and play along – or alternatively if you don’t want the rules cruft of a Family and Character playbook you can have a simple character to use. That sound of interest to anyone?
Lester Ward Council of Elrond style should work well! Definitely a good way to get the ball rolling – I find that in later Ages family agendas tend to take care of themselves.
I’m actually drafting up rules inspired by Ars M at the moment, so that if the fiction is focused on one particular character everyone else can make bit characters from that character’s family and play along – or alternatively if you don’t want the rules cruft of a Family and Character playbook you can have a simple character to use. That sound of interest to anyone?